Madame Calais was leaning forward, her hand on Anne Marie’s shoulder. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
Anne Marie must have dozed off.
“Marcia said you wish to speak with me.”
Anne Marie came awake with a start and pushed herself out of the armchair. She got to her feet.
The two women shook hands. Madame Calais’ hand was thin, and Anne Marie felt the angular bones of her knuckles.
“It was about your husband.”
“Of course.” Madame Calais was wearing a black dress and black shoes. A gold necklace lay on the skin of her neck.
“Madame Laveaud. I am the juge d’instruction.”
“I was about to have tea. Or perhaps you would care for something stronger.” With an outstretched arm, Madame Calais invited Anne Marie to follow her into the main part of the house. They went down the steps, and Anne Marie found herself in a long corridor. The smell of wax polish, the distant sound of frogs.
“I always have tea at this time. The heat of the day’s over and it is time to relax. Sometimes, with my husband, I take.…” She corrected herself, “Sometimes we had cocktails but really I prefer tea. Darjeeling or lapsang. I have it sent specially from London. Fortnum and Mason’s. Do you know that shop? Very good.” She gave a little laugh. “When it comes to tea, I am afraid I am a bit of a snob. Aren’t I, Marcia?”
The maid who was walking silently behind them, said, “Yes, madame.”
They stepped out onto a balcony. Wooden balustrades protected it from the garden. There was a lamp and several low chairs about a white table.
“Please sit down.”
A dog, probably a Labrador, was curled on the floor. He looked up at Anne Marie with melancholy eyes.
Madame Calais tapped the animal’s broad head. “We call him Forty Percent.”
Anne Marie sat down opposite her. “A strange name.”
“All civil servants in Guadeloupe receive an additional forty percent weighting to their salaries.”
“Life can be very expensive.”
“The métropolitains working for the government have the expense of coming out to Guadeloupe, of equipping a new home. But for the local civil servants, the forty percent is an unnecessary expense. For the postman and the primary school teacher—what need do they have of an inflated salary?” She shrugged. “France is a big, bountiful bosom, full of milk. And France continues to pay. So now you’ve got an island of people who don’t do anything. But they get fat salaries for sitting in their offices.” She nudged the dog with her foot. “Like him—fat and lazy. Sleep all day and then expect to be fed. And only the very best will do.” Madame Calais turned to Marcia who stood waiting, neat with her feet together and her hands behind her back. “A nice pot of tea, chérie. And perhaps there are some biscuits.”
“Yes, madame.” Marcia hurried away on her prim legs.
Madame Calais smoothed the folds of her black dress over her knees. Then, leaning forward, she whispered, “From Saint Lucia. They work better and they’re honest. The people from Guadeloupe nowadays—they’ve all become thieves.”
“Your husband disapproved of the immigrants.”
She nodded. “The Dominicans—many are marijuana addicts. But the people from Saint Lucia—of course Raymond had nothing against them. Good workers. They don’t ask for exorbitant rates, and like the Haitians, they’re reliable.”
There were bright lights at the far end of the garden, a hedge of oleander and a wire fence. Anne Marie could hear—beyond the relentless threnody of the frogs—the rhythmic bounce of a tennis ball as it hit a racket. Through the hedge, she saw a man and a woman, their white clothes standing out against the deep red surface of the illuminated court.
Madame Calais followed her glance. “My son, Armand.” There was the dull thud of the tennis ball and then light, girlish laughter. “And his wife. Armand, I am quite sure, would love to meet you.” The light from the lamp threw the older woman’s face into shadow and gave her deep, dark eyes. “Please don’t think I hate all civil servants. It’s just that sometimes I have the impression it’s the civil servants with their money who’ve spoiled this département. Guadeloupe, you know, used to be so lovely. So innocent.”
She fell silent.
The scent of mahogany wafted from the garden. The irregular rhythm of tennis balls being struck.
“Nearly half past six.” Madame Calais glanced at her gold watch. “I do love this time of day. For Raymond, it was sacrosanct. He’d always make an effort to get home by nightfall.” A smile. “A time when we could be together and talk. For a moment, when I heard your car in the driveway.…” She shrugged and looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
After some time, Marcia came back carrying a tray and a service of bone china.
“Raymond was so alive, so dynamic.”
Marcia poured the tea from a willow pattern pot and handed a matching cup to Anne Marie.
“So hard to believe Raymond’s never coming back. Dead and gone for good now. My husband was always doing something. Even when he was away in Martinique or in Paris and I was here alone, I could feel his presence. It was something physical. We formed a happy couple. You know, when a man and a woman’ve been together for so many years, certain things.…” She raised her hands and let the sentence hang unfinished.
Marcia placed the pot on the low table and disappeared in silence.
“Afternoon tea,” Madame Calais said, using the English words, “It was a rite. Me with my pot of tea and my saccharine tablets. An irony, isn’t it, that we could own so much sugar and I can’t allow myself a spoonful.” She tapped her waist. “I have my figure—or what’s left of it—to think about. Raymond said I was quite mad. Drank more punch than was perhaps good for him. But I always think a man’s not a man unless he has … well, a big body. I don’t say corpulent but.…” She hesitated. “At least substantial.” She held her cup with the small finger pointing into the air. “A biscuit, mademoiselle?”
“I must watch my line, too.”
“But you are absolutely lovely as you are. Lovely eyes. And such a nice smile. Like my daughter-in-law.”
Anne Marie smiled and took a biscuit.
“Shortbread,” Madame Calais said. “If I love afternoon tea, it is the English in me.”
The biscuit was stale. “You’re English?”
Madame Calais took a sip of tea. “Part French, part English, part everything. A lot of us are. It goes back to the Revolution.”
“The French Revolution?”
“I grew up in Barbados. And I speak French because I had a French nanny. My family has close contacts with all the cousins and uncles who live in the various islands of the Caribbean. A lot of them returned to Guadeloupe after the French Revolution. When I was a child, in the days before there was all this flying, I used to come up to Guadeloupe with my sister. We used to stay with cousins who had a small coffee plantation near Basse-Terre. In the hills. In those days, the people were very simple and very good. I’m talking about before the war. People were so kind. There was none of this racial hostility. I’m afraid we imported that from the Americans—they are such racists, the Americans. The people here, they didn’t have much, but they were satisfied with their lot in life. More tea?”
Anne Marie shook her head.
“The métropolitains here think that all the local whites are terrible, that we treat the blacks like dirt. It is not true, you know. Not now—things have changed. Thirty, forty years ago, perhaps. To be quite honest, I never really liked the Békés when I first came here. A very closed circle and I was shocked by the way they—my own relatives—treated their servants. In Barbados—and being part French—I’d always liked to think the French were a bit better than the English. The English have given tea to the world—and we’re all a lot better for it. But the French have given their marvelous civilization. And human rights.”
Anne Marie nodded.
“You have got to understand the Békés—and to do that, you must understand psychology.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Treat the local people as equals—and they don’t like it. They want you—that’s the point—they want you to be white, and they want you to be in a position of authority. Because they don’t want to make decisions for themselves, they’re afraid. Now there’s all this wonderful talk about equality—and really, the people of Guadeloupe don’t want that at all. The people from France—not you, but the civil servants, the people who come for a couple of years to make a pile of money—they think they understand everything, and they criticize. They criticize the Békés, and they say we despise the blacks. It’s just not true. We’re all God’s children, aren’t we? It’s not the color of our skin that’s going to change anything—certainly not in His eyes. Try to understand. We have different traditions—and all this talk of equality is very dangerous.”
Anne Marie finished her tea.
“The worst are the mulattos. They know everything. They think they’re ready. They’ve studied and they’ve been educated—but of course, they’re still African. Despite their nice clothes and the way they try to ape us.”
“I find that I can’t distinguish between skin colors.”
“It was the mulattos who killed my husband.”
“The mulattos killed Raymond Calais?”
“They’re jealous, that’s what they are, these mulatto revolutionaries.” She stopped. “They killed him,” Madame Calais repeated and then she started to cry. The skin of her face began to crumple, bright tears ballooned from the corners of her eyes. She put down the cup and saucer and took a handkerchief from where she had tucked it under her sleeve. The crying grew noisier.
Forty Percent raised his head.